


My Confident Flowers

by Pablo360



Series: Half Past Adventure Extended Universe [2]
Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Anxiety, F/F, Gardening, Marriage Proposal, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:14:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24251887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pablo360/pseuds/Pablo360
Summary: Marceline has a very important question to ask of her girlfriend, Princess Bubblegum.
Relationships: Princess Bubblegum/Marceline
Series: Half Past Adventure Extended Universe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1543054
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	My Confident Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second bonus chapter for [Half Past Adventure](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18820774/chapters/44660608), although like with [the last one](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21404101), you don't need to read HPA to get this story. It's set a few years after the finale of Adventure Time, and it's basically my way of fleshing out just a little of how they got from that famous kiss to the state of their relationship in HPA. Just a little.

Okay, I can do this. I know where I stand. Just gotta go out there and say it. What’s the worst that can happen?

I should know better than to even think that question. As soon as I do, horrible possibilities start flooding into my head. She could say no. She could laugh in my face. Everyone could laugh in my face. A giant freaking hell-portal could open up in the sky and conjure a being of chaos incarnate to terrorize everyone I love (don’t snicker, that last one’s happened). As I drift back and forth in the hallway of the castle —  _ her _ castle — my eyes unfocus. I’m chewing my fingernails ragged and I barely notice the acrid, sulfurous taste.

I must have drifted closer to the garden door, ‘cuz I faintly hear her having a conversation with one of the banana guards. I can’t quite make it out from over here, even when I stop my aimless drifting and shapeshift one of my ears into a bat’s to get more oomph. Whatever. I don’t wanna be a creeper, anyway. Best just get over there and resolve this, one way or another.

Absentmindedly pushing the door open with a conspicuous yawn, I drift out into the garden and oh sweet glob in heaven my skin is on fire. On the bright side, the searing pain of every individual atom in the front half of my body being torn open from the inside distracts me from my anxious trepidation. I guess “bright side” might not be the best course of words, considering that it’s the sun’s brightness that’s currently in the process of vaporising me slowly and torturously as I collapse to the ground in agony. For the most part, I’ve learned to live with my vampirism, but sometimes it really bites. Oh well. Guess I’ll die.

Just kidding. I reach into my pocket and pull out a gothy black umbrella, opening it with the press of a button. Once shaded, my vampiric healing kicks in, regenerating the destroyed parts of my body within seconds, and before I know it I’m back to normal. That wasn’t so bad; it was barely even excruciating. I think I handled that one like a champ. Didn’t even scream in anguish. Confident, I put an assured hand on my hip, only to realize something very important has fallen out of my pocket.

I have a brief moment of panic. Where could I have put it? I can’t have left it inside, can I? What if it somehow got burned up when I walked into the sunlight? Thankfully, my better demons prevail, and I remember to look down. There it is, lying on the cobblestone path in front of me: a small velvet box, barely the size of my hand. It didn’t even pop open when it hit the dirt. I quickly pick it up and shove it back into my pocket, where it belongs.

As I approach my love, I catch the tail end of her conversation with Banana Guard 349. “…but it’s not as important,” she’s saying as she pats down the dirt near a rectangle of tall, close-packed, and colorful flowers. “Antirrhinums are hearty flowers. They can stand up to whatever remaining frosts this season has in store, as well as the infestation of creepy-crawlies. But that doesn’t mean you can ignore them.”

“Okay,” replies 349, giving a thumbs-up in her soiled gardening glove. “I’ll take good care of the antirhinos.”

Bonnie shakes her head. “Antirrhinums.”

“Artichoke nums.”

“Antirrhinums.”

“Ostrich monsoons.”

With an exasperated sigh, Bonnie pinches the bridge of her nose and unbends her knees to stand up fully. “Snapdragons,” she says. She  _ never _ calls things by their real name instead of their bogus fake language fake name, so I can reasonably infer that exchange has been a microcosm of her day so far.

“Okay,” says 349. “Thanks for all the gardening tips, Princess, but now I really need to go to Banana Guard 85’s piano practice; I promised I’d hit the notes when he reached the end of the page so he could turn the sheet music to the next page.”

Bonnie holds up a hand to make an OK sign. “Why not just turn the pages for him?” she asked.

“You know, that makes more sense. Bye!”

As 349 jogs past me on her way into the castle, I waved to Bonnie, who only then seems to notice my presence. Her face shifts from the passive, patient smile she wears for her subjects into the genuine, understated smile she only shows to me. The difference is subtle, but I’ve known Bonnibel Bubblegum one way or another for most of my immortal life at this point. I can tell.

“Hey, Bonnibel,” I say in my best sultry voice (which is very good), raising an eyebrow and giving my parasol a twist. “Lookin’ good.”

“Marcie,” Bonnie responds, a blush coming to her cheeks. “Have you come to check out the garden?”

I resist the urge to say, “That’s not all I’m here to check out.” That’s what she  _ wants _ me to say. Instead I ask, “Heard you mention an infestation of creepy-crawlies; is that still going on? I could take care of that pretty easily, you know.”

There it is — that patient smile. I feel a coldness in my chest. Bonnie’s a real genius, so sometimes I feel like I’m an idiot next to her, and when she gives me  _ that _ smile I can’t help but wonder if she’s thinking the same thing. “I’ve told you, babe, it’s for the best if we let the banana guards deal with their biz. They need a lot of help in developing independence, which means they need us to not help out too much.”

I can’t help but chortle at that last paradox. “Girl, you say the strangest things with a straight face. Weren’t you just helping 349 with those flowers?”

Instead of answering, Bonnie holds out her hand, palm extended. I step forward nervously, my own hand at the parisolar penumbra, and… you know… do the thing. H*ndholding. There’s a rush of electricity as her fingers wrap around mine. I don’t hear what she says next, but I think it must be something like “walk with me” because that’s what we end up doing.

“I wouldn’t say I was really helping her  _ per se,” _ she says. “I was just giving her direction. It’s a starting point. I think I owe them that, you know?”

“Not really,” I say truthfully. “I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around how you giving them direction is supposed to make them more independent.”

“Hm, how should I put this?” her pace slows down, so I slow to match. Wouldn’t want my arm to swing outside of my umbrella’s protection and disintegrate, after all. “It’s sort of like why we gave baby Peppermint Butler that dark magic tome.”

I involuntarily gag. “We’ve got to come up with a better name than that. Calling a baby a butler just sounds wrong. But I think I get what you mean.”

I do, too. Ever since Gumbald’s nasty stunt with the Dum-Dum Juice, her butler of eighty years has been reduced to an infantile state — a fate which was intended for Bonnie herself. In an attempt to let him rediscover his former self, Bonnie gave him access to all the darkest children’s magic tomes available. He relearned his letters with the necronomicon. As he grows up, there’s no telling what the consequences of this early and consistent exposure will do to him, but… actually, that might be the opening I need. If I can get her to start talking about the future, I can figure out what her feelings are without needing to embarrass myself by asking and risking rejection.

“You know,” I venture, “he’s kind of like our son now.”

“All the candy people are like my children,” she responds without missing a beat. “Except old Mr. Cream Puff. He’s like my ex.”

Not the most promising start, but I can work with that. “It’s a little bit different these days, though, isn’t it? I mean, what with you sort of sharing the Candy Kingdom with your Aunt Lolly. Things are still getting set up over there, obviously, but who knows what that’ll end up looking like?”

“Nobody,” Bonnie says with a small nod. That’s not the answer I was hoping for or expecting. Bonnie is always the person who knows how things will go, especially matters of state. Perhaps that ain’t as true now as it used to be following her temporary ousting by the so-called King of Ooo, but I’ve figured she at least would have a vision for her partnership with Lolly, which she would then go on to describe with the same matter-of-factness one might describe the current weather, or the cosmological balance of candy, ice, fire, and slime.

Instead, she kneels down in front of a patch of dirt, placing her hands on her knees like before. She doesn’t let go of my hand to do it, so I have to quickly tilt my umbrella. “It’s like this garden,” she explains. “We can do everything we can to plant the seeds, to water them, to care for them, but in the end there’s no telling how the plants will turn out. That destiny is up to the plants.” She sniffs deeply. “You smell that, Marceline? That’s the smell of freedom.”

I turn my nose into a fruit bat’s so I can get a good sniff, but I immediately retch. “Smells like wet dirt,” I manage, quickly standing up and accidentally yanking Bonnie up with me.

“Whoa!” she yelps, but she doesn’t seem too startled. She’s pretty serene these days. Actually, now that my nose is away from the ground, the smell of the winter bloomers she and 349 have already directly transplanted to the garden set me to relaxation, too.

“This is pretty nice,” I admit as we resume our circular walk, trying a different tack. “Idyllic. I could see us spending a lot of time in this garden. Sittin’ on a bench with our kids, watching nature do its thing, yeah, that’s the life.”

“Really?” Bonnie playfully punched me with her other arm, which made me flinch. Girl doesn’t know her own strength. “You want an idyllic life? You’re the biggest adrenaline junkie in Ooo!”

“Maybe.” I laugh it off, but something about that comment unsettles me, ‘cause it’s true. I started out this walk just trying to figure out what Bonnie wants from her future, but what  _ I _ want is just as nebulous. Whatever the answer, though, there’s one thing I know for sure. “I’d be willing to try it, though, if it’s with you.”

Bonnie’s face becomes a veritable tomato. “That’s sweet—”

_ “You’re _ sweet.”

She blushes deeper. “—but you’re terrible at relaxing.”

I shrug. “Just because I’m terrible at it don’t mean I don’t wanna do it. Besides, I’ve gotten pretty good at being chill since the new Ice King moved in.”

“That may be temporary,” Bonnie speculates. Now she has on her scientist face, and the this-audio-log-is-my-last-connection-to-civilization-but-I’m-a-professional voice to match. “I suspect it’s merely a coping mechanism to deal with the extreme physical and emotional burnout following the fight with GOLB. it’s like your body’s overtaxed your panic center, so now you’re just storing up all that tension for the next big adventure.”

There it is. The problem at hand. “But what  _ is _ that next adventure?” I push. I can hear the desperation seeping into my voice, and it grinds my goulash. “Surely you must have some idea. You’re Princess freaking Bubblegum. You build a kingdom from the ground up. Nothing catches you by surprise.” Glob, I hope that’s not true.

“I’ve given up attempting to read the future.” She sounds so peaceful and wise, even though she’s actually saying the most frustrating thing she possibly can. “When I did that, it was by spying on literally everyone and giving myself far too much power simply because I’d surrounded myself with people without enough willpower to stop me. I’ve learned a lot about how to be a good ruler since I made this kingdom, and part of that is letting things be mysteries. I can’t let myself stress over what may be.” Then, in a quieter, strained voice, “I make bad choices when I’m stressed.”

“Yeah, well, quit being so non-stressed,” I grouse. “It’s stressing me out.”

“Oh, Marcie.” When she puts her free hand on my shoulder, I turn my neck around and give a fork-tongued hiss of annoyance (not my proudest moment), but she maintains her serene expression. “Tomorrow will take care of itself. Enjoy today for what it gives you. Slow down and smell the snapdragons.”

I suddenly realize we’ve completed our walk around the garden. I’m back where I started. “Fine,” I grumble, and I get about half a step forward before I trip over a trowel 349 neglected to pick up and plant myself face-first into the dirt.

The searing pain that follows as the sun strikes my weak beautiful body is nearly so excruciating that I don’t also feel the sharp, concentrated pain as something hard and metal jabs my ribs. At first I think the crack that accompanies the bass drop of my inglorious tumble must be one of those ol’ bones snapping like a wishbone at Prismo’s Yulemas feast, but a blind scramble for relief met only by a mechanical click where a smooth woosh should be reassures me that, no, it was just my umbrella snapping. My umbrella, the only thing that stood between me and the solar radiation that is currently killing me. I’m a bit too on fire to really despair, but if I could think, I’d be thinking some pretty unsavory things.

The next thing I know, that specific pain is gone, as a new weight jolts me and smothers my entire body. In an effort to shield me from that jerk the sun, Bonnie has thrown herself on top of me. Silhouetted against the harsh sky, she looks like like three blurry angels rotating around each other. The sound of her frantically calling my name swims up past an ocean of ringing noise.

With the arm that feels less like a dead fish, I check my pocket before responding. Good, it’s still there. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I manage weakly. “It’ll take more than that to kill me. I’m pretty stubborn.”

Bonnie hugs me, gently so as not to cause too much pain. “That you are,” she agrees, which I think is rather rude. “That looked like it hurt.”

I assume a bat form so I can more easily fit into her shadow. “I ain’t worried none about that,” I say in my squeaky bat voice which people insist against all reason is adorable. “You wouldn’t let anything happen to me. That’s one future I know for sure won’t come to pass.”

With a gentle nod, Bonnie picks up my broken umbrella. Now that my head’s clear, I can see that it’s been snapped neatly in two, and the mechanism that would link the button to the black folding canopy sag out of the busted metal pole. After a bit of fussing around with it, she aligns the two ends and then spreads her hands across it like a stage magician. A tube of swirled red and white appears as her hands pass over the pole, cleaving together the cleaved halves of the umbrella with a tube of magically-conjured peppermint.

I grab the umbrella in my tiny bat claws and test the button; seeing that it works, the force of it nearly knocking me off my feet, I settle back into my comfortable human form, spinning the parasol over my head to make that cool illusion where a spiral pattern looks like it’s moving up. That is legit the sweetest thing to me, and I don’t just mean because it’s made of peppermint. That’s free red right there.

Speaking of red, my stomach growls, so I take a sip and drain one of the strips of a bit of its color. Vibrant and refreshing, with a bit of that minty bite. “Thanks, Bonnibel,” I say with a soft chuckle. “Umbrella repair  _ and _ a snack. You should use your elemental powers more often.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” That polite, patient smile is back, but her eyes aren’t patient this time; they’re sad.

Bonnie’s trying to be patient with herself, and she’s on the edge of failing. She’s been on that edge for a long time, actually. It’s like she doesn’t know she’s allowed to not know. And I was trying to push her to talk about the future concretely? I really have been asking the wrong questions. Slowly, trying not to draw attention to it, I start to reach into my pocket once more.

“I still don’t really jibe with my whole elemental shebang,” Bonnie continues. “When I was just Princess Bubblegum, the genius inventor who built a kingdom and a populace from scratch and brought stability and technology back to the scattered people of Ooo, things were simpler. I knew exactly who I was and what I was capable of, and because of that, I could see where I was headed. Sure, there were setbacks, but they were all a part of the equation — an orderly form of disorder.

“Then Patience St. Pim came along, and suddenly I wasn’t just myself. I was the Candy Elemental, the latest in a long line of part of a set. I had all these powers that weren’t a part of who I’d built myself up to be, and because they were so separate from myself, I couldn’t even use them right! I was the greatest of princesses but the weakest of elementals, to the point where it felt like I might as well not have been one at all. Why bother even using my powers if I can do everything they can do better with science?

“But the worst part is, I  _ want _ to be a better elemental, just like I want to be a better princess. I just don’t even know where to begin. If there’s one thing I learned from befriending the other elementals as princesses, it’s that in order to be an effective leader, I have to step back and let my people lead themselves sometimes. It’s why I’m so supportive of the Banana Guards’ hobbies. But what does that say about being an elemental? Does it say anything? I’m hoping that if I just take a break from everything, I might be able to find a perspective that hasn’t what are you doing?”

I’m bending over on one knee, parasol firmly grasped in one hand, holding a small velvet box in the other, opened to show a fine-cut diamond ring. “Bonnibel Bubblegum,” I ask, my heart pounding so hard in my chest I almost feel alive, “will you marry me?”

Bonnie puts her hands over her mouth to hold back a squeal. To be honest, I can’t blame her. If I proposed to me, I’d probably have the same reaction (it’s not a crime to know what I’ve got). After about ten seconds, she manages to peel her hands away. This is one of them big smiles, the kind that leaves your cheekbones sore. “Oh, Marcie,” she sobs, “y—”

“My flowers!” shouts Banana Guard 349, who’s evidently come back from 85’s piano practice. “You’re crushing my flowers! Oh, man, this is the worst day ever.”

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: The banana guard in this chapter is the same one who was tending to the garden in the first chapter of HPA. In fact, it's the same garden. That fact doesn't actually mater, I just wanted to say it so it'd be said. And now it is.
> 
> The next bonus chapter probably won't be romantic in nature. I wanted to try out writing some wlw for the first two, to see if I could write romance. And I did, and I can, and now it's on to new territory. I don't know what territory, yet, but it'll be new.


End file.
